


for all the penance she seeks

by slytherinmayflower



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Alaric Saltzman is a terrible father, Angst, Daddy Issues, F/F, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Landon is a featurette, Mental Health Issues, POV Second Person, Rupi Kaur poetry inspired, Unhealthy Relationships, mildly introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29986734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherinmayflower/pseuds/slytherinmayflower
Summary: hope is a river running down; she flows into you in her ending, and both of you are consumed.-i read a rupi kaur poetry book and wrote this at 1 in the morning
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson & Lizzie Saltzman, Hope Mikaelson/Lizzie Saltzman
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	for all the penance she seeks

**Author's Note:**

> it's been a while, i'm precariously placed in emotional weirdness and decided to post this thing that i tweaked since writing it at the beginning of season 3...in all honesty, not that invested in the show anymore, but still surprisingly inspired by these characters despite their potential being squandered.
> 
> i was going to tag this as "light angst" because who knows how to measure angst, but i don't think it's that light. so just   
> This Is An Angst Warning. Beware. this starts with parental issues and just goes from there. it's kind of dark? i have no perception of what dark is, but it's probably leaning into the definitely unhealthy mental space.

_a daughter should_

_not have to_

_beg her father_

_for a relationship_

_-_ rupi kaur

* * *

you read it in a book and the words resonated like a drum beat within you, summoning all other lossless mourners.

it is the first thing that binds you - beyond tragic mothers and mental illness.

your father abandons you so often to parent someone else that you often forget; though he's yours - cruel as all fathers secretly are, so adept at breaking what they should protect - he's never hope's. how could he be? hope's was what she never knew to expect: loving and breaking her until he left her begging too.

-

your minds are different and yet so inclined.

hers, a murderer and yours, broken.

she struggles through kindness, parsing its shadows on unsteady feet, breaking new belittled ground and being unwound for it. a legacy she bears upon her shoulders and her shackles trip her up.

you struggle through your lies; your carefully crafted mystique and deceit.

healthy. _lie._

sane. _lie._

guiltless. _lie._

everything you are is fractured and storm-ridden; a part unknown and a burden unwavering on your lungs.

you have a secret.

you are a murderer too.

every time you open your mouth, a piece of you dies at the looks on their faces.

you are a new legacy; the both of you. two failures trying to shed their tarnishes.

-

you cannot be unburdened.

  
  
even as her crow coos at her, crossing boundaries in sweet pursuit, as if countries would never war over his treachery - you see it.  


  
when he beams at her, immortal and desperate, as if love is so certain when it is inescapable, you watch her shudder under the weight of her bones.

  
  
there is not a world where her guilt escapes her grasp, and never will she stay with him. she is too gentle and too selfish to allow it.

he leaves her like a father does (yours and hers); at his own discretion; coming and going, always with angry words of love and withering eyes of blame. as if surviving in his absence is a crime. as if her strength is not forged fresh and often. as if she will love him the way he wants for leaving her the way the first man she ever loved did.

you wonder what will be the final push. when she kills someone again. when he does. when you do. there is no greater bond forged than that of blood in this town; it’s what forged your mother’s greatest love in life. you wonder if it will be what makes the last love of yours.

-

you are not often the subject of any softness. you are a heavy tide of emotion against the rubble urchin of this town and you have long worn it away. 

hope is a river running down; she flows into you in her ending, and both of you are consumed. 

it is not a long love that you will give her, if it is even love at all. you don’t know that you’re capable of feeling beyond passion, of certainties. love is trust and faith. unloved as you’ve ever been, you don’t know that you could kiss her, have her, hold her without doubt nestling into every gap between the curves of your bodies. 

but the love you will have is safe for both of you; familiar in its familial treads.

your flesh will give under a hand – hers, her enemy’s, some wretch of a blood-debt she’s too young to have ever known – and you will weep into each other's arms, her blood a smear in her palm as she fights to give you breath. does she honour the mistakes of this town? the death that should've been, the life that never was. does she think of you, of all that vampirism will bring - the death she could unleash onto the world? does she love you or does she save you, self-serving in either regard; always another weight or death to nurture. 

her love is no less deep for all the penance she seeks; it is all encompassing, so that the grief may be too.

yet even knowing her, knowing _this_...you cannot bring yourself to spare her from it.

you are selfish too.

-

burdens onto others, yes, but you are most a burden onto yourselves.

* * *

_more than anything_

_i want to save you_

_from myself_

_-_ rupi kaur

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think


End file.
